Publications

April 1996 (Revised May 2008)
Exercise

Adam Baxter Company/Local 190: 1983 Negotiation, Local 190 Confidential Information

By: Kathleen L. McGinn and Victoria Medvec

Includes a series of three negotiation exercises portraying management/labor relations at ABC over a period of seven years. ABC, initially a family-owned business, had prided itself on its cooperative relationship with its union, Local 190. With the skyrocketing... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Compensation and Benefits; Labor Unions; Wages; Working Conditions; Negotiation Process; Labor and Management Relations

15 Mar 2022
Research & Ideas

This Workplace Certification Made Already Safe Companies Even Safer

States cost companies an estimated $171 billion in wage and productivity losses in 2019, according to the National Safety Council. By 2018, more than 90,000 organizations across 127 countries had adopted OHSAS 18001. The similar ISO 45001... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

01 Nov 2019
What Do You Think?

Should Non-Compete Clauses Be Abolished?

restrict an employee’s upward mobility and reduce wage and benefits competition among employers. According to statistics cited by the US Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 12 percent of workers earning less than... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

March 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

Culture at Google

By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Amy Klopfenstein and Sarah Mehta

Beginning in 2017, technology (tech) company Google faced a series of employee-relations issues that threatened its unique culture of innovation and open communication. Issues included protests surrounding Google’s contracts with the U.S. government, restrictions of... View Details

June 2010
Article

Quality Management and Job Quality: How the ISO 9001 Standard for Quality Management Systems Affects Employees and Employers

By: David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel

Several studies have examined how the ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard predicts changes in organizational outcomes such as profits. This is the first large-scale study to explore how employee outcomes such as employment, earnings, and health and safety... View Details

Keywords: Quality; Management; Standards; Employees; Wages; Organizations; Profit; Safety; Health; Policy

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09 Sep 2015
Research & Ideas

Leadership Lessons of the Great Recession: Options for Economic Downturns

by instituting freezes on hiring and wage increases, limiting employee rewards and recognition programs, and reducing the company match to employee 401k retirement accounts. In light of the cost reductions imposed throughout Honeywell,... View Details

Keywords: by Sandra Sucher & Susan Winterberg; Aerospace; Electronics

February 2022
Case

US Foods: Driving Post-Pandemic Success?

By: David E. Bell, Olivia Hull and Amy Klopfenstein

In November 2021, US Foods CEO Pietro Satriano must decide his company’s trajectory following the COVID-19 pandemic. US Foods suffered due to business closures and social distancing during the height of the pandemic. While the situation improved following the return of... View Details

21 May 2012
Research & Ideas

OSHA Inspections: Protecting Employees or Killing Jobs?

With an election looming and the economy continuing to struggle, the effectiveness of government regulation has become a political football. While advocates hold regulations up as necessary to protect public health and safety, critics see them as arbitrary and costly... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

20 Oct 2010
Op-Ed

Export Competitiveness: Reversing the Logic

exports instead of adding to global trade (Atkinson, 2009). There is some evidence of this tension emerging in recent years, for example in Europe as German wage restraint improved its relative cost position on export markets. In... View Details

Keywords: by Christian Ketels

Research Summary

Markets of Progress: Coffee, Commerce, and Community in the Soconusco, Chiapas, 1867-1920

Markets of Progress presents a new holistic story of rural development in Mexico at the turn of the century. In the Soconusco, as in regions throughout the world, the accelerating circulation of commodities and capital, ideas and immigrants reshaped society... View Details

Keywords: Commodities; Coffee; Mexico; Foreign Investment; Institutions; Immigration; Developing Agriculture; Development; Export Crop; Emerging Market; Property Rights; Labor History; History; Capital Markets; Business History; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Latin America; Mexico; Central America

2022
White Paper

The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement

By: Matt Sigelman, Joseph Fuller, Nik Dawson and Gad Levanon

The American Opportunity Index: A Corporate Scorecard of Worker Advancement is a new effort to give companies and other stakeholders a set of robust tools that measure how well major employers are doing in fostering economic mobility for workers and how they could do... View Details

Keywords: Upward Mobility; Career Advancement; Personal Development and Career; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Wages; Human Capital; Recruitment

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September 2020
Case

Uber at a Crossroads (2017)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

This case describes the history of Uber, its business model—including the ways it differed from that of the traditional taxi industry—and its competition with Lyft. The case is set in 2017, a year in which Uber was plagued by even more scandals than usual, though its... View Details